Yummy Cupcake!

This week the boy and I received an invitation to the birthday party of one of the babies in our playgroup. She's going to be turning ONE (yay, Katie!) and the theme of her party: cupcakes! Her mom is all excited because she found a cupcake-shaped cake pan— and now she can make a cake-sized cupcake. It's funny how sometimes it's those strange little things that can make us happy.

Anyway, inspired by the theme of the party, I decided to make a cupcake pillow for Katie. I thought about making a sort of tuffet-like pillow (as in actually 3-D cupcake-shaped), but then realized that would require a little too much mathematical effort for me (and probably more fabric than I wanted to use). So, I went with just a flat pillow in a cupcake shape. I knew I wanted to use fleece (so soft, so washable, and no fraying!). I didn't exactly have a plan, but on Tuesday, I went to Hancock Fabrics. I found a pink remnant for the frosting, a colorful pastel stripe to cut up for different colored sprinkles, and then a yellow ribbed fleece that was absolutely perfect for the cupcake base. Then I went home and actually designed the pillow. Gah! One day, I'll get my order of operations correct.

Tonight, I got to work and made my pattern. I decided it would be fun to have Katie's name on the pillow, and embroidered it in the frosting area. I did a practice one using tear-away stabilizer on the bottom and wash away on top (because of the heavy nap of the fleece, I didn't want my threads sinking down). On try two, I used a cut-away and was a little happier with the result. The third try, I used the same color in the bobbin as in the top. That did the trick. Except I kept having a problem with some of the upper threads getting a little loopy on top (only in a couple of places though). I never managed to figure that one out, but there were only a couple, so I was just able to pull the extra to the back side. I'm wondering if maybe I enlarged the lettering to the point where the satin stitch was just too wide... maybe should have adjusted to a step stitch? Anyway, it looks alright and I'm pretty happy with it. Finally, I got down to actually putting it all together.

Here are the front and back views:
Overall, I'm really happy with it. So cute! I hope Katie likes it... and I can't wait for the party to give it to her. :)